7:34 AM 4th March 2026
Full Steam Ahead For Yorkshire Author's Book On The Birth Of The Railways
Neil McGoohan
Mixing historical fact and fiction, Neil McGoohan's The Iron Horse is a riveting account of how the very first railway in the world was funded and built.
The Iron Horse, the first of four books in Neil's Waggonway series, is already receiving very positive reviews on Amazon.
The author was born in Leeds in 1967 and grew up on Teesside from the late 1960s. He was educated at St. Albans RC Primary and then Sacred Heart RC Secondary in Redcar. After leaving the North East, Neil spent over a decade living and working in London, building a career in IT that took him through some of the UK's most prominent media organisations, including BBC Worldwide, Channel 4 and Sky.
A frequent rail commuter throughout those years, trains were very much part of the fabric of his daily working life — yet it was only later that he came to fully appreciate the extraordinary connection between the railway network he relied upon and the corner of the North East where he had grown up.
He now lives in Minskip, near Boroughbridge, in North Yorkshire.
Neil has worked for three railway companies: GNER (2004-2005); ECML East Coast Main Line (2011); and then Hitachi Rail (2017-2019).
He explained that he first became interested in the launch of the Stockton and Darlington Railway when he worked for these companies but: "I learned nothing that told the story of the people who were involved in the birth of the railways in the Northeast. I felt this was a story that needed telling."
"The Quakers of Darlington, especially Edward Pease and his family who funded the Stockton to Darlington railway, were key to this story, as was George Stephenson, the brilliant engineer who built the engine which powered the first train."
Neil continued: "The Pease family took a huge risk and their legacy provides a reminder that to innovate for public benefit it often requires private risk to be undertaken. What the Pease family stood for and delivered across the two generations within this story is based on intelligence, physics, and, perhaps most importantly, a level of kindness not often shown in large business decisions."
The strength of The Iron Horse lies in the consummate ease with which the author blends fact and fiction.
Neil explained: "The factual characters, especially George Stephenson, are almost beyond belief. So, I needed to create some relatable characters that readers might consider to be like their own ancestors of the time. I have also included near-contemporary characters to show how the railways have influenced the world over the two centuries."
Neil sees huge similarities between the birth of the railways 200 years ago and the rapid growth of AI today.
"To me the introduction of the railways was a significant paradigm shift. We can all view the impact of the train in our own experiences of today. We can see its roll out. The 19th Century was a gargantuan change of opportunity, social and economic growth. The train was front and centre for so much of this change.
"We are at a similar pivotal point with AI in 2026 as the train was in 1825. Technology can always be used for good and bad, but one key aspect that should always prevail is the potential positive change that should encourage us to be more optimistic than pessimistic. The heroes of my story proved that."